


the years have gone, i know not where

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Banter, Elves can be confused by human ages, Emotions, Gen, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Pre-Slash, emotions are difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 17:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Beleg is acting somewhat strange in the wake of Turin's coming of age. Two of his friends try to puzzle this out, with varying degrees of success.





	the years have gone, i know not where

If pressed, Beleg would say that the king’s foster-son has always been trouble. Turin may have been quiet, but his moods were wild and quick-moving as a summer storm, and he never forgot any injustice, no matter how slight. He presumed upon his father’s name, and his foster-father’s; he could not keep his temper from his face, or his hands from his sword.

In fact, some days Beleg would say all of this without being pressed – or even asked – at all.

“I see. So you do not like him,” Mablung prods.

“Belegûr’s balls, Heavy Hand,” Beleg groans, emptying the remainder of his tankard with one ferocious gulp.

“The mystery becomes ever deeper, but we will ferret out the answer yet,” Mablung muses, enjoying his friend’s discomfort with solemn but growing glee. Beleg never lost control of his mouth or his head like this – and over what seems to Mablung like a passing infatuation, at that! Ever since Turambar had reached manhood, Beleg had been skittish as a newborn fawn around him or even the topic of him. . . “It seems a bit extreme to prefer the Enemy’s balls to that slip of a boy, but eh, I suppose it _is_ strange that you are old enough to be his great-great-great-great-“

“Any time now that you plan to cease speaking, I encourage it,” Beleg mumbles, speaking without much hope even as he slumps down onto the table with his head in his arms. “You are a horrible creature and an even worse friend.”

“But more importantly, how am I as an interrogator?” Mablung presses. “I fancy myself a decent one.” Moments such as this had to be savored, for they came perhaps once in a century, if that. Only imagine it – Beleg Strongbow, flushed and crimson over a Man!

“I would prefer an interrogation under whip and chain to this torture,” Beleg says with deep feeling.

Mablung cannot help himself. “You are rather unimaginative if that is all you imagine can be done with whip and chain, Strongbow.”

There is a heartbeat’s silence before Beleg just _sighs_ , gusty as a long-contained fart _._ “Mablung Heavy Hand, I regret to say that you and I are no longer friends after this night.”

Mablung pats his former friend’s shoulder consolingly. “How terribly, terribly sad – my heart is broken! But, I suppose, if we are no longer friends then I no longer need to pretend that I support your atrocious self-pity and your terrible taste. So. Tell me, Strongbow, what is it about Turambar? What secrets do Men’s bodies hold that you would abandon the camaraderie of our great Watch just to go tumbling into this one’s bed-“

He doesn’t quite manage to finish articulating this very important question before Beleg is bolting upright, growling something about needing sleep and storming out of their drinking hole in a huff. Mablung grunts with amusement and moves to steal his abandoned tankard, only to find it suspiciously light and finally remember that Beleg had just drained it dry.

~ ~ ~

“Are you angry with me?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

Turin Turambar, eldest and only son of the heroic Húrin Thalion, foster-son of Thingol Greycloak King of Doriath, and new-minted bearer of the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin, blows a wet raspberry with all the solemnity and dignity that his titles afford him. “Then why am I talking more than you are?”

“Because you are a brat,” Beleg mutters, sullen.  

Turin turns incredulous eyes on his oldest friend. “Now there is an epithet I have not heard from you in many years, Beleg, nor thought that I have merited in just as long.”

The elf snorts. “And yet I will call you as I choose, little Man.”

Turin’s brows rise. Both of them. “Beleg. What is it.”

Perhaps it is the brows, or perhaps it is his tone, but either way, something seems to break through the grumpy haze surrounding Beleg. The elf startles, finally sitting upright in a manner more like Turin is used to seeing from him. “It is nothing,” he grumbles. “Nothing more than Mablung once again proving himself as heavy-handed in word as he is in deed.”

“And so you think it fair to pass his heavy-handedness along to me?” Turin asks lightly. It is strange, to be the diplomatic one in their conversations for once, but Turin finds that he does not truly mind.

And Beleg seems to notice it too, for a reluctant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “No. But then, I hardly thought at all, which is – well, a rather neat reversal for us, isn’t it, that I am the one saying foolish things and you are the one bringing sense to my heart. Well done, Turin Turambar, heir of Thalion! Now I can say it in truth – you have come of age and into your own.”

But it is not difficult to hear the shadow behind his words, even if Turin does not quite know what Beleg means by it. “You do not sound as though you are happy I am of age, old friend.”

Beleg huffs, as if there are things that he would say but cannot. He is silent for a moment before he admits: “It is more that I do not know what to do with this fact, that is all.”

“Who said you had to do anything?” Turin presses, intrigued. This is not the answer he had been expecting – not that he had been expecting a particular answer at all.

“No one, and yet-“ Beleg pauses. “It feels like I should acknowledge it, somehow. Treat you differently, now that you are grown.”

This amuses Turin even as it makes him uneasy. “Please, old friend, do not. Enough do, now that I am of age, and I could not bear to count you among their number.”

To his astonishment, Beleg whirls about with a snarl already rising on his mouth. “Who. What did they do.”

“Peace, peace!” Turin says, laughing and raising his hands in the ancient Doriathrin gesture of good-will even as his mind races over this unexpected reaction. “I only meant that the court has grown even more solemn and stuffy now than they had been before, which is quite a feat.”

But Beleg hardly seems appeased by this, so Turin pushes. “Beleg? Old friend, what did you think that I meant?”

With a graceful, eldritch motion that Turin could never duplicate, Beleg stands. “I hardly know what I thought,” he murmurs, his voice far away. “Between Mablung, and you, I – I hardly know what I think!”

Turin shakes his head, bemused “Mablung? That is twice now that his name has come up without you offering a commentary on his personality or his hygiene, old friend, so now I am truly concerned about you! What is it that distracts you so?”

“You are of age, now,” Beleg says softly, still looking out into the wilds that he as a guardsman keeps watch over. “And my heart is in turmoil, for I hardly know what that means, Turin! I can still recall you as a lad of fewer than ten summers, so small that I could carry you atop my hip as I led your retainers here, and in my span of years that might as well have been yesterday. I have been your teacher, and your mentor, and I hope your friend, and now I do not know what I am to be to you in this brave new age of yours.”

“Beleg?” It is not often that Turin uses his friend’s name: with them, it is more often playful nicknames and teasing insults, but in the moment this seems more appropriate. “Beleg, I am not done learning, and my foster-father has approved my request to go out and guard our borders with you. You still mean all to me that you have ever meant before, and my coming of age does not change who we are or what you mean to me.”  

“What if-“ Beleg begins, still looking away from him, and then immediately falls silent.

“What if what?” Turin prompts, but still Beleg does not speak. “Ai, old friend, now we have truly traded places, if I am the one encouraging you to speak instead of imagining that I can parse the thoughts from your head!”

At that Beleg does turn back to regard him, but the look on his face is sadder now, somehow.  

“I am glad to hear that we are still everything that we were before,” he says softly, and the smile that he offers Turin now is older and sadder still. “I also hope that you can forgive an ancient creature his musty ramblings, for I hardly know of what I speak tonight.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Turin assures him, somewhat confused but willing to show that he has taken no harm or offense from whatever strange phantasms Beleg seems to have conjured in his own mind. Then he cannot help but add: “Especially because you have no actually spoken of anything, just danced around some invisible bush as if you were afraid of what might be inside it when you went to take a piss!”

This unexpected return to their usual brand of humor, Turin is glad to see, makes Beleg crack a slightly larger, slightly more familiar and honest smile. “Terrifying things can happen to a man’s cock out there in the wilderness, brat.”

“So you assure me,” Turin returns, grinning right back. “I cannot wait to see it all for myself, old friend.”

The grin softens into something sad again, but before Turin can rally another witticism to drive that sadness away, Beleg has returned to crouch before him, taking Turin’s face in two broad, bow-calloused hands.

“You will see the wild lands for yourself, Turin Turambar, and you will be as much the prince and the warrior there as you have always been here,” Beleg promises, quiet but with a touch of fervency that Turin has never heard from him before. “This I hold in my heart, so long as I live, and I am grateful that I will stand by your side as you do.”

The hands are nice, but – “Old friend, whatever has gotten into you?” Turin asks gently, leaning forward so that his forehead is pressed against Beleg’s, and Turin can watch with bemusement as Beleg’s eyes slowly slide shut. “It is nothing but prophecies and mysticisms from you tonight!”

“I told you, it is nothing but an old creature and his confusion at being reminded that he follows old ways,” Beleg whispers, making no move to relocate his hands or open his eyes.

And Turin could have almost believed him, but then Beleg actually sniffs. They both start at the foreign sound, and Beleg rises hurriedly, pressing a quick kiss to Turin’s forehead as he stands, pulling away altogether. Then he turns and he is gone, striding out into the night long before Turin can gather the words to question him again.  


End file.
